GHANAANDNIGERIATOGUARANTEESECURITYOFTHEIRNATIONALS

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Ghana has agreed to continue to work with Nigeria to guarantee the security and socio-economic prosperity of their people.

Consequently, the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of both countries will begin the process of reviving the Ghana-Nigeria Joint Commission for Cooperation, and progressively expand its focus to the level of Bi-National Commission.

President John Dramani Mahama announced this at a joint press briefing with President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria after the two leaders presented a resolution after three hours of bilateral talks at the Peduase Lodge.

President Muhamadu Buhari was in Ghana for a day's working visit to cement Ghana’s long-standing friendship with his country.

President Mahama also stated that Ghana and Nigeria as two key sub-regional leaders, must lead the regional integration effort which had enormous benefit for their individual countries, and the region as a whole. He said the two countries had also agreed to continue with their leadership efforts in that direction.

He said the seemingly similarities in the individual country’s vision and development agenda makes the work much easier. President Mahama further stated that as the immediate past Chairman of ECOWAS, he had discussed with President Buhari the progress made on the fight against the Boko Haram insurgents.

He commended President Buhari and sub-regional leaders for the quick response and active deployment of military power to help fight the insurgents. He said President Buhari had actively worked hard to rope-in all the member-states of the Lake Chad Basin Commission and Benin in the fight against Boko Haram.

He said this was enhancing the work of the multi-national task force set up, following the approval of the African Union (AU) and on the recommendation of the ECOWAS Heads of State and Government.

President Mahama also stated that as two brotherly nations, they had agreed to encourage closer co-operation between the intelligence and anti-graft institutions of the two countries.

He said other issues that engaged their attention during their discussions included the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) and the New Sustainable Development Goals, to be launched this month on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly.

He said they also discussed Africa’s position on climate change, sharing of ideas on the energy sector and current power challenges, and how they could work together to ensure energy security for the two nations.

President Buhari stated that when he assumed office, the first thing he did was to re-organize the Nigerian military with a clear reference in terms of retraining, re-equipping and redeploying the troops.

He said the military was now gaining grounds and the Boko Haram group had been limited to the Sambissi Forest. He said most of the internally displaced persons were gradually moving back to their constituents, and were being integrated into their respective communities, adding that a lot of progress was being made.

President Buhari also stated that the declaration of assets by public officials had been there for a long time, and that was a constitutional issue. He said he had declared his assets three times already, when he was Governor in 1975, when he became the Minister of Petroleum, and also when he became a military leader

He said he was going to declare his assets for the fourth time as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. President Mahama added that though assets declaration was also a constitutional matter in Ghana, as part of the constitutional amendment that government was moving in for, those assets declared would be made available to the Media in order to make the declaration more transparent.

He explained that even in the current regime, anybody who wanted to challenge the assets declared by any public official could do so with a court order or petition to the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to contest those assets.